


Shelter

by breathedout



Series: Passchendaele ficlets [15]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Art partners as life partners, Bohemianism, Divorce, Domesticity, F/F, Having a chat, Just a couple of aging lady-loves, Post-WWI, Teachers, Visual artists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: Toronto, Ontario: October 9, 1924"I saw your former liege lord," Matty said, taking the cup from Katherine.
Relationships: Katherine Llewellyn Murray/Mathilda "Matty" Sutton
Series: Passchendaele ficlets [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1254113
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: femslashficlets: janelle monae lyric prompt challenge





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> The folks over at [femslashficlets](https://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/) on Dreamwidth are hosting a year-long, 15-ficlet challenge where all the prompts are Janelle Monáe lyrics. I'm using them to create a little cycle of exercises using characters from the three established or hinted-at f/f pairings in the original novel I'm working on. So all of these tiny character studies will be related to one another, and all except three of them will be either Louise/Hazel, Rebecca/Katherine, or Emma/Maisie. Anyone interested in getting to know my characters a little bit as I flesh them out is welcome to follow along!
> 
> This story was written for the prompt "Dance in the trees paint mysteries." Thanks, as always, to my best person [greywash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash) for her invaluable help with this and all the stories. <3

It was near dark by the time Katherine heard the rattle of the front door opening. The terms of her bargain with herself had been, one: a cup of tea; and two: a biscuit; and three: a stack of student essays, and four: that she would sit herself down at their kitchen table and remain there, reading and marking, until such a time as Matty returned. And so Katherine was starting to debate with herself whether getting up to light a lamp would count as cheating, and, as a secondary point, whether she cared; when the front door opened at last and she could, in good conscience, push her remaining stack of essays away from herself, and rise to help Matty off with her coat, and then bustle into the kitchen and look about her, brewing them both fresh cups of tea, free from the work of the day. 

"I saw your former liege lord," Matty said, taking the cup from Katherine. She set it on the side-table, then lowered herself into her chair. She put her feet up; let out her breath on a groan. 

Katherine had long estimated that Matty's use of courtly language about _Ned_ , of all people, was perhaps six-tenths an appreciation of the absurdity of the universe, three-tenths to get a rise out of Katherine on Feminist grounds, and one-tenth an expression of Matty's own sincere, if somewhat embarrassed, desire to imagine herself as Katherine's _current_ liege lord, with all the ridiculous chivalric appurtenances thereof. Endearing, really: especially as it was Katherine who, for instance, made the rounds of their mouse-traps, since disposing of the little bodies caused Matty to come over faint. In any case Katherine now made a show of remaining unruffled. She slid into her own chair opposite Matty's. Sipped her tea. 

"Yes indeed?" she said. "Where was this, then?"

"Down—at the market," Matty grunted. She was bending forward in her seat, loosening the laces on her brogues. The cold, Katherine thought: Matty's bad ankle would be paining her. So she rose and filled the Davol bag from the ice-box as Matty called to her, from the other room: "Doing the—shopping. Looks—recovered from that—bronchitis, or whatever it was—in the fall. Asked after you, of course, when does he not. _So po_ —"

"— _lite_ ," Katherine joined in, bringing the ice bag back into the sitting room. And in chorus: " _for a bohemian_ " they finished, together. Katherine handed over the ice, running fingers along Matty's nape under her shirt-collar.

Matty leant forward again to wrap the bag around her ankle. Chuckling, even after all these years, at the old joke. Back in her chair Katherine smiled too, thinking—it was odd, wasn't it. All these _selves_ she'd been. The one who'd married Ned; the one who'd left him. The one who'd told Matty that story, in their old kitchen in the place on Oxley Street, after the first or second time Matty'd met Ned. That was when she and Katherine had still been—something more than simple roommates—they were already critique partners before Matty'd even moved in—but the thing between them hadn't been—solid, yet. Had it. And Katherine had told her the story and Matty had said, _Him?_ and had slapped the table, _a bohemian?_ ; and had laughed so hugely and so un-self-consciously that Katherine hadn't been able to stop herself joining in. And she had looked at Matty leaning back in her chair and guffawing and thought, disconcertingly: I want to be touching her. I want to be so close to her I forget which is my own skin.

And so, well. Decades now, it'd been one of their shared by-words. _So polite, for a bohemian_ : a little tug between the two of them, whenever Ned had come up in conversation. Though it had been mortifying, of course, when Mrs. Landry had first said it at Katherine's wedding. A little too loud, and in front of Rebecca, no less: who had blushed, Katherine remembered. As if _bohemian_ were some sort of blasphemy. A sign, Katherine had been certain, that Rebecca was ashamed of Katherine after all, the way Katherine had always feared she would be and Rebecca'd always assured her she wasn't. Ashamed of what she'd always been; or of what she'd then, in that moment, been in the process of becoming. 

Good grief, though, Katherine thought. Who knew what a twenty-year-old girl had been feeling? Who was to say she'd been ashamed of Katherine at all? She'd given her her blessing. Possibly Rebecca'd been embarrassed by her mother: people with mothers, Katherine had observed, often seemed to be. Who knew? Possibly it hadn't been shame at all, but some other emotion. Possibly she'd been thinking of the times when Katherine had painted her. Possibly she'd previously spent some time thinking of the two of them—herself and Katherine—being _bohemians_ together. 

"Ooh," said Katherine, now, here in her sitting room with Matty, fresh from running into Ned. "A market-basket. A glimpse into the home life of the modern second husband. What was Letty planning for them, then?" 

"Hm." With her left toes Matty massaged her right ankle, through the ice pack. "Didn't say. Plenty of celery and carrots." 

"Cabbage?" said Katherine. "A single potato?" 

Matty started laughing, and she was nodding; and Katherine, her mouth spreading too in a smile, gestured back at her with her tea. "I taught him how to make that stew! I'll have you know."

"I don't doubt it," Matty said. "I don't doubt it for a moment."

"In our lean years," Katherine went on. "Though I'd hope he's bringing in enough now that he could improve on the butcher's leavings we used to use."

Their laughter crested, then settled: lengthened, comfortably, in the cosy room. Outside, the street had faded entirely to black, and Katherine felt them enclosed, together, with their lamps and their easy jokes and their rubber ice packs and their tea, sheltered from the world outside.


End file.
